SeaWorld Orlando is still holding off CP in terms of attendance (although considering that CP gets most of its business over a few month span of time and SWO is 365, CP is kicking the crap out of CP). But that's also because SWO is a shell of what it used to be. Blackfish hit the parks with SeaWorld in their name hard.

But I still think that in terms of how the GP see things -- not necessarily us because we're a niche group -- theming, landscaping, and park aesthetics carry more weight than quality of unthemed, outdoor rides. So that's how Disney, Universal, and the SeaWorld parks are able to charge so much more and get people to travel from across America to attend them. The non-themed amusement parks generally just get locals to come who don't spend as much on a daily basis. SeaWorld is still incredibly expensive, so even though the park usually seems dead, they probably still make money, because they extract so much from guests. Its $100 for a ticket, and you don't see the generous discounts for their tickets that you have at the amusement parks unless you sit through a time-share presentation. Season passes also tend to be a higher multiplier over a single day ticket than the Six Flags parks and one-off regional parks.

Yes, those are the rankings we have been referencing the past few pages. People will travel for any park they feel is worthy to spend a vacation at based on their tastes. If we were to go off of theming or all-inclusive in every day vacation taking, no one would visit anywhere but Cancun, Hawaii or someplace in the Caribbean. Regional parks vs. Larger Parks is a different question. The fact that SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa (both great parks and both in a large tourism market) pull in less than 500,000 more than Cedar Point, a seasonal park located in the middle of nowhere in a relatively mid-sized market does point to the fact that people do view it as a "destination" and not just a one-off. I get where you're coming from and the logic does work for some other parks in the Cedar Fair and Six Flags chains for sure. Operating season, however, does not have an impact on how people view a park, it just means its open less or more!

Too Fast For Comfort wrote:CP is kicking the crap out of CP

Well, I guess I go off of percentage of guests over a year. Just because certain people break the rules and do things a certain way, doesn't mean that they don't represent a percentage so low that its not worth the park's time to worry about. Some people may travel to rando' amusement parks across the country, but when you factor in the legions and legions or local people who make up their bread and butter, they're not even a rounding error. In contract, Disney does pull in some local people, but the majority of their customers are coming from out of state (and when you're in Orlando, leaving the state takes a long time).

Now, I doubt that many people really travel over 1,000 miles just to go to BGW or SWO, but I think that they get some spillover from Universal/Disney, and they might stop by when they're on vacation. Orlando/Tampa/Miami just get tons and tons of tourists, so people will just stop by. Whoever thought of taking your family to a rural town 60 minutes outside of Cleveland? Whoever thought of taking their family to Cleveland for a vacation for that matter? I think that CP gets a lot families and adults who are doing local travel within 5 hours, but its probably mostly just the enthusiasts who would go halfway across the country to visit. And... a very large portion of enthusiasts already live in Ohio.

Anyways, this kind of ties back to the original argument: RMC Gwazi might be one of the highest profile projects for RMC, as BGT pulls in tons of tourists and not just regional guests. Even if those guests didn't necessarily come for BGT.

But I still think that in terms of how the GP see things -- not necessarily us because we're a niche group -- theming, landscaping, and park aesthetics carry more weight than quality of unthemed, outdoor rides. So that's how Disney, Universal, and the SeaWorld parks are able to charge so much more and get people to travel from across America to attend them. The non-themed amusement parks generally just get locals to come who don't spend as much on a daily basis..

If theming, landscaping, and park aesthetics carried more weight then wouldn’t BGW have more guests than CP? Plus BGW has a longer operating season.

It’s a little more complicated than that.

Disney and Universal have very specific theming to the most popular movie and tv characters. It’s that plus the fact that it’s a park designed for families.

As far as non themed parks just catering to the locals. That isn’t true with CP. CP is a destination for thrill seekers, and there are a lot of thrill seekers that are GP and not enthusiasts. And they make those cross country trips to CP.

Anyways, this kind of ties back to the original argument: RMC Gwazi might be one of the highest profile projects for RMC, as BGT pulls in tons of tourists and not just regional guests. Even if those guests didn't necessarily come for BGT.

This is where you lose me because we’ve already established that BGT doesn’t get a tom of spillover from the Orlando parks based on the numbers. But even if it did, or heck, even if RMC was to put something in Orlando it wouldn’t matter because by definition the GP doesn’t know who RMC is. And they won’t seek out other RMC’s.

That’s why their highest profile projects are going to be the ones thrill seekers and enthusiasts like, not the GP.

Made a visit to the park today. It was pretty serviceable in the morning but by the time I left in the early afternoon, the crowds had picked up. Even Montu had a 45 minutes wait, alongside 50 minutes for Cheetah Hunt and 75 for Cobra’s Curse.

SheiKra appears to be down for scheduled maintenance, the splash pond is drained. Kumba and Montu kicked butt as usual. Cheetah Hunt had a bit of a fart and had to be cycled a few times empty before reopening.

Tigris’ first tower is about halfway finished. No visible work happening on the Gwazi structure as of yet but there’s a crane in there somewhere.

coasterbill wrote:How do you feel about it's fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo policy though? Would you say that I am too stupid to spell Steel Vengeance so I'll just write I am too stupid to spell Steel Vengeance so I'll just write SteVen and pretend I'm being cool and pretend I'm being cool is better or worse than WindexCyanide?

Made a visit to the park today. It was pretty serviceable in the morning but by the time I left in the early afternoon, the crowds had picked up. Even Montu had a 45 minutes wait, alongside 50 minutes for Cheetah Hunt and 75 for Cobra’s Curse.

SheiKra appears to be down for scheduled maintenance, the splash pond is drained. Kumba and Montu kicked butt as usual. Cheetah Hunt had a bit of a fart and had to be cycled a few times empty before reopening.

Tigris’ first tower is about halfway finished. No visible work happening on the Gwazi structure as of yet but there’s a crane in there somewhere.

That's unfortunate news about ShieKra. I just went to BGT a week ago, and for the first time ever I saw it running four trains with both loading stations operating. It made the line move extremely quickly for once. I was hoping that they'd keep the four loading station mojo up.

Too Fast For Comfort wrote:That's unfortunate news about ShieKra. I just went to BGT a week ago, and for the first time ever I saw it running four trains with both loading stations operating. It made the line move extremely quickly for once. I was hoping that they'd keep the four loading station mojo up.

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